Tinchurin, Karim

Born Sept. 3 (15), 1887, in the village of Akkul’, in what is now Bednodem’ianovsk Raion; died May 7, 1947. Soviet Tatar playwright and theatrical figure. Honored Artist of the Tatar ASSR (1926).

Tinchurin was educated in a madrasa in Kazan from 1900 to 1905. He wrote his first play, The Discussion, in 1906. In 1910 he joined the Saiiar Theater as an actor, and in 1918 he became its stage director and chief administrator. During the first years of Soviet Tatar theater, Tinchurin created a repertoire consisting of the comedies lusuf and Zuleikha (1918), The Parrot (1918), and The American (1925). His satirical comedy Without Sails (1926) is a significant work of Soviet Tatar theater; it deals with the fall of a group of renegades who betray their own people during the Revolution. Tinchurin also wrote the successful melodrama The Blue Shawl (1926).

During the 1930’s, Tinchurin’s plays portrayed positive contemporary heroes. These works include the musical drama On the Kandra River (1932) and the plays The Family of Old Bulat (written with K. Nadzhmi, 1933) and They Were Three (1935).